Opinion
Column

Time to undo multiculturalism mistake

Forty years ago, in October 1971, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau introduced multiculturalism as an official policy for Canada.

Seventeen years later, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives turned Trudeau's policy into the Multiculturalism Act of 1988.

In other words, it was not merely Trudeau but Canada's political elite, supported by the intellectual and media elites of the country, who adopted without much questioning a policy that was, at best, dubious and deeply flawed as the law of the land.

Canada was the first of the advanced liberal democracies in the West to turn multiculturalism - an idea without philosophical substance - into official policy.

Four decades later, some of those democracies - Germany, Britain, France, the Netherlands - have openly expressed regrets as their elected leaders publicly admitted the failure of official multiculturalism in securing social harmony, or advancing national interest.

In my recently published book - Delectable Lie: A liberal repudiation of multiculturalism - I discuss at some length why this policy reflected an act of bad faith on the part of Trudeau and company, and how it continues to be detrimental to the vitality of a liberal democracy.

The bad faith resided in the ridiculous proposition that all cultures are equal. This is the keystone of multiculturalism as an idea, and it is untenable.

Individuals are born equal or, as the American Declaration of Independence states as self-evident truth, "all men are created equal."

Inequalities then among individuals born equal result from circumstances (natural or man-made) and history, and how such inequalities might then be dealt with emerge as part of an ongoing political discussion.

But cultures - by definition, culture represents the shared values, beliefs and customs of a collective - are not and never have been equal.

The inherent bad faith of multiculturalism's proponents is in obscuring the historical reality of cultures being unequal and frequently engaged in conflict.

It is absurd to argue the culture of the Huns was equal to that of the mighty Roman Empire, even in its decline.

It is equally absurd to state in our time that the culture of the Saudi Arabs - or the Taliban, or Muslims from Pakistan, Iran, Somalia etc. - is in any way equal to and deserving of equal respect as the culture of an advanced liberal democracy, such as Canada, before it was smitten by the dogma of multiculturalism.

Common sense recoils from such an absurd proposition. It takes someone with a college degree to accept silliness of this nature as higher knowledge.

In fairness to Trudeau, it should be noted, that late in life when invited by the speaker to visit Parliament in Ottawa and meet with some parliamentarians, the former prime minister expressed his misgivings about multiculturalism.

Trudeau was asked to comment on how, as a result of his policy, most new immigrants ranked their ethnic-based cultural identity ahead of Canadian identity. He indicated his sadness, admitting this is not what he had wanted.

Four decades later, most Canadians will be relieved if their political leaders have courage to do the right thing when it comes to multiculturalism, which sits as a suffocating weight over their liberal democratic culture, and have it repealed from Canada's statutes.